Brussels, Feb. 15, 2021 (Lusa) - The European Union Council of Finance Ministers (Ecofin) will discuss on Tuesday, by videoconference and under the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the EU, the process of drafting national recovery and resilience plans, as well as the ratification on own resources.

Last Friday, the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism regulation was finally signed in a ceremony at the European Parliament in Brussels attended by the Prime Minister, António Costa, representing the Council. Now the finance ministers of the 27 will "exchange views on the priorities of national recovery and resilience plans, after a presentation by the Portuguese presidency," according to the meeting's agenda, to be led from Lisbon by the Portuguese finance minister João Leão.

The Portuguese presidency of the Council of the EU is also expected to take stock of the state of play on national ratifications of the own resources decision, which has to be ratified by the 27 so that the European Commission can go to the markets to raise the €750 billion of joint debt to finance the "NextGenreationEU" recovery package.

The European Commission is also expected to briefly present its debt issuance strategy under "NextGenerationEU", although a formal communication on this. The borrowing conditions are only expected in April.

Once the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism regulation has been signed, it remains for it to be published in the EU's official journal, which should happen this week. Member states can formally submit their national plans to the European Commission for subsequent approval by the Council.

On Friday, António Costa said he hoped that some plans would be approved by late April.

So far, 19 member states have submitted their draft national recovery and resilience plans to the European Commission, and Portugal was one of the first to do so, on 15 October. It defined the creation of social responses as priorities, focusing on the health service and housing, and the promotion of employment through more investment and skills.

With €672.5 billion in grants and loans, the Recovery and Resilience Facility is the main element of the recovery package agreed by the EU in 2020 to address the social and economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the 'NextGenerationEU', with a total allocation of €750 billion in grants and loans.

The process of ratifying the decision to increase own resources is slower, as only six member states have done so - including Portugal - but Costa said at a press conference in the European Parliament that he had received an "assurance [from the other member states] that", all will have ratified it by early April.

In addition to discussions on these two key elements for the EU's recovery package to address the socio-economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to reach the 'ground', EU finance ministers have several other issues on the agenda at Tuesday's videoconference. These include an analysis of the current economic situation and outlook - based on the winter macroeconomic forecasts released last week by the European Commission, which again revised the pace of recovery of the European economy downwards because of the persistence of the pandemic, and a discussion, which is expected to be less than consensual, on updating the list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.

At the end of the meeting, João Leão and Commission executive vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis, responsible for "An Economic Serving People", will hold a conference to present the discussions' results.

ACC/ADB // ADB.

Lusa